Impact mitigation continues to be an area of growth and development within the transportation industry. Conventional passenger vehicles can include various impact mitigation devices such as airbags, vehicle door reinforcement members, restraint modules, pretensioners, impact sensors, and air curtains. Some of these devices are aimed at improving the vehicle's structural rigidity in impact situations. Side impact is one area that can present a quagmire as the vehicle doors are less rigid since they need to be configured to connect and disconnect from the vehicle frame (i.e., open and close with respect to the vehicle frame).
Current side doors contain beams to help distribute the energy in side impact situations. While the beams may be tied into a hinge pillar at one end of the door, they are effectively cantilevered at the opposite end of the door. See e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 7,441,826 titled “Energy Transfer Beam for Automotive Side Door.” This cantilevered arrangement can limit the role that the beams play in reducing deformation of the side door in side impact situations.
Some existing vehicles have sought to manage this issue by extending the beam between the vehicle A-pillar and B-pillar. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,196,619 titled “Vehicle Closure Panel Having an Intrusion Beam as Primary Structure” discusses a U-shaped beam with keys at each end designed to mate with receptacles formed in the A- and B-pillars. Likewise U.S. Pat. No. 5,314,228 titled “Vehicle Side Impact Intrusion Barrier” involves supports in each of the A- and B-pillars that enable a beam to move or rotate about the supports in a side impact situation. While each design seeks to reduce deformation in side impact situations, none of them provide as much structural rigidity as would locking or constraining a crossbeam with respect to both pillars.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a vehicle structural reinforcement system that enables a door crossbeam to be selectively secured into an A- or B-pillar when the door is closed yet unlatch for entrance in or exit out of the vehicle. Greater resistance against rotation of the crossbeam is further desirable to reduce overall deformation.